Let’s Talk About the Blues

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There was nothing good to be said of the deaths of Lily and Mason Boots last year. Nothing, that is, except the words of the judge at their mother’s trial, who accepted unreservedly that the factors that induced her to smother her infant son and 14-month-old sister were “truly beyond her control”.

Until recently it was thought that depression during and soon after pregnancy affected roughly 10 per cent of mothers. New research suggests the real figure may be as high as one in seven. In its direst form the condition can lead to infanticide. More often it leaves new